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Rolfe Humphries
George Rolfe Humphries (born November 20, 1894 - April 22, 1969) was an American poet, translator, and teacher. Life Humphries was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He attended Towanda High School, and graduated cum laude from Amherst College in 1915. He was a first lieutenant machine gunner in World War I in 1917-1918. In 1925 he married Helen Ward Spencer. He taught Latin in secondary schools in San Francisco, New York City, and Long Island through 1957. From 1957 to 1965, he taught at Amherst College. He taught at many poetry and creative writing workshops, including the University of New Hampshire Writers' Conference and the University of Colorado Writers' Conference.http://rmoa.unm.edu/docviewer.php?docId=couspcms18.xml He was a mentor to many poets, including Theodore Roethke.http://www.english.illinois.edu/MAPS/poets/m_r/roethke/bio.htm Among his literary friendships were those with Louise Bogan, Edmund Wilson, and Elizabeth Bishop.http://www.solearabiantree.net/namingofparts/bishop.html His work appeared in Harper's Magazine}Harper's,http://www.harpers.org/subjects/RolfeHumphries and The New Yorker.http://www.newyorker.com/search/query?query=authorName:%22Rolfe%20Humphries%22 Humphries is known for a notorious literary prank. Asked to contribute a piece to Poetry in 1939, he penned 39 lines containing an acrostic. The initial letters of each line spelled out the message: "Nicholas Murray Butler is a horses ass." The editor printed an apology and Humphries was banned from the publication.[http://everything2.com/?node_id=1091716 Nicholas Murray Butler, Everything2, Retrieved September 3, 2011] The ban was lifted in 1941. He died in Redwood City, California. His papers are held at Amherst College.http://asteria.fivecolleges.edu/findaids/amherst/ma93_bioghist.html Writing W.H. Auden called Humphries' translation of Virgil's Aeneid "a service for which no public reward could be too great." Recognition Auden included his poetry in the Faber Book of Modern American Verse. Awards * 1938 - Guggenheim Fellowship in creative writing http://www.gf.org/fellows/6992-rolfe-humphries * 1955 - Academy of American Poets Fellowship Publications Poetry *''First-Born''. Peekskill, NY: Watch Hill Press, 1928. *''Europa, and other poems and sonnets''. New York: Crosby Gaige, 1928. *''Out of the Jewel: Poems''. New York: Scribner, 1942. *''The Summer Landscape''. New York: Scribner, 1944. *''Forbid Thy Ravens: Didactic and lyrical poems''. New York: Scribner, 1947. *''The Wind of Time: Poems''. New York: Scribner, 1949. * *''Poems Collected and New''. New York: Scribner, 1954. *''Green Armor on Green Ground: Poems in the twenty-four official Welsh meters and some, in free meters, on Welsh themes.'' New York: Scribner, 1956. *''Collected Poems of Rolfe Humphries''. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1965. *''Coat on a Stick: Late poems''. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1969. *''Nine Thorny Thickets: Selected poems'' (edited by Dafydd ap Gwilym). Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1969. Non-fiction *''Hero and Anti-Hero: A lecture''. Columbus, OH: Ohio State University, 1968. Translated *Federico Garcia Lorca, The Poet in New York, and other poems: The Spanish text with an English translation. New York: Norton, 1940. *Virgil, The Aeneid: A verse translation. New York: Scribner, 1941. *Federico Garcia Lorca, The Gypsy Ballads. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1953. *Ovid, Metamorposes. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1955; London: John Calder, 1957. *Ovid, The Loves, The art of beauty, The remedies for love, and The art of love. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1957; London: John Carter, 1958. *Juvenal, Satires. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1958. *Martial, Selected Epigrams (introduction by Smith Palmer Bovie). Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1963. *Titus Lucretius Carus, The Way Things Are: The De rerum natura. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1968. Edited *''New Poems by American Poets''. New York: Ballantine, 1953; Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries Press, 1970. *''New Poems by American Poets 2''. New York: Ballantine, 1957. Letters *''Poets, Poetics, and Politics: America's literary community viewed from the letters of Rolfe Humphries, 1910-1969'' (edited by Richard Gillman and Michael Paul Novak; biographical essay by Ruth Limmer). Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1992. Except where noted, bibliographical information courtey WorldCat.Search results = au:Rolf Humphries, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, Oct. 4, 2014. Play *''Adelante'' (musical; produced on Broadway, 1939).Rolfe Humphries, Internet Broadway Database. Web, Oct. 4, 2014. See also * List of U.S. poets References External links ;Poems *"Coming Home" at Casa Poema ;Books *Rolfe Humphries at Amazon.com ;About * Historical note, Five Colleges Archives. *Rolfe Humphries biography at the Guggenheim Foundation * [http://www.kansaspress.ku.edu/gilpoe.html review of Poets, Poetics, and Politics]. Category:1894 births Category:1969 deaths Category:People from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Category:American poets Category:Amherst College alumni Category:Amherst College faculty Category:20th-century poets Category:English-language poets Category:Poets Category:American academics